Successful Companies Are Giving Customers What They Want — Before They Even Know They Want It

Successful companies have always catered to their customers, but
today's consumers want more.

Customers expect companies to come to them — and to provide a
pleasant, productive, and personalized experience that makes them
feel special. Smart companies are responding to these changing
customer expectations by putting customers first, engaging them
in new ways, and focusing on customer service and satisfaction.

How Data Can Reinvent The Customer Experience

An organization that is truly customer-centric today uses new
technology to reinvent the customer experience. Businesses now
have the ability to predict customer behavior based on their past
experiences and purchases, and to use that information to create
marketing tailored to individual customers.

“Without good data it becomes more difficult to consistently
improve the customer experience,” SAP CMO Jonathan Becher wrote
in a recent blog post. “It’s not enough to have surveys
and anecdotal feedback from customers; you must analyze their
entire experience over time.”

Analytics can also help companies understand how their customers
differ, to ensure each customer gets an experience that he or she
will appreciate. Millennials, for example, often approach
shopping and business transactions differently from many Baby
Boomers or Gen-Xers, relying much more on social networks and
peer relationships to inform their decisions — and quickly
sharing their complaints with the world if they have a bad
experience.

Why It's A Challenge To Create Customer-Centric Companies

Making a business customer-centric isn’t like flipping a switch.
Established processes and attitudes are sometimes barriers to
that shift, even if everyone generally agrees on the company’s
new direction.

According to Becher, companies often have organizational
disconnects that interfere with the customer experience. “The
challenge is that each of these channels, from the in-person
experience to the website to the call center to post-sales
support, are usually developed and managed independently — and
often by different groups within the organization,” he says.
“Given the way business units and functional groups are organized
and measured inside companies today, most care only about the
slice of the experience they’re directly involved with.”

Even small steps can sometimes cause companies to stumble. Mark
McDonald, group vice president and head of research at Gartner
Executive Programs, points out that many
executives want the energy and engagement social media can offer
— but they may conclude that it's too distracting from
“meaningful work.”

“How do I know?” McDonald asks. “Because frequently executives
ask about the productivity impact of social media and see it as a
reason to reinforce control rather than reinvest in
collaboration.”

Companies that want to become more customer-centric need to use every
tool and strategy at their disposal to improve the customer
experience. It's important for them to know their customers
better and engage them more fully. Because now more than ever,
with access to infinitely more purchasing options, customers have
the power to decide how, when, and whether they will do
business with a particular company.

In the future, the companies that will thrive are those able to
give customers exactly what they want, the way they want it, when
they want it — before they even know what they want.